Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

X-Men ’97 S2 E4

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“Rise of Apocalypse, Part 2”

The origin of Apocalypse is revealed as Apocalypse gains his form and all kinds of bad things are underway.

The death of Magneto in this episode was dramatic, although I never buy the death of him. Is he coming back as a Horseman?

We see Kang as he is while Rama Tut was fleeing the scene. He also mentioned his names “Richard, Victor and Kang.”

This episode showed a Celestial too, making everything a real cosmic encounter.

This showed a lot about Magneto and his arrogance. Magnus believed that he could make things better, and he forced the X-Men to follow. He also forced the X-Men back to the 1990s when they were ready to fight Apocalypse.

The animation was beautiful as well.

I can’t wait to see where this goes from here. The post credit scene at the end with Captain America, Black Widow and Wolverine was fun and will surely lead to Logan reclaiming his adamantium.

Agents of Shield S7 E4, E5, E6, E7

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“Out of the Past”

“A Trout in the Milk”

“Adapt or Die”

“The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D”

This continues to be my favorite season so far, and the show has been taking some gigantic swings.

How about a whole black and white, noir episode? Coulson with the monologue over the scenes (which is an internal monologue), the cool mystery and the saving of Sousa, sort of.

Daniel Sousa was supposed to die in 1955 after he delivered an object to Howard Stark. Coulson said that he was a hero and that he was taught in SHIELD history. The team decided to save Sousa, fake his death (by using Coulson) and bring him with them in the Zephyr.

All in black and white.

Turned out, the black and white came from a malfunction of the Coulson LMD.

The next episode was into the 1970s and the show had a seventies style opening theme, with voice over introducing the cast.

It was clear that the writers had a freedom to come up with remarkable situations over the time stream and that they were having a hoot. There is drama, comedic moments and some great action.

Mack goes through a lot as his parents are killed and replaced by Chronicoms. He gets left behind with Deke in 1982. He spends a year mourning in isolation as Deke tries unsuccessfully to help him. Deke created a cover band…as a cover. The Deke Squad was his covert Shield group filled with weirdos and losers. Deke shows some real character development during these episodes and Jeff Ward is just remarkably funny. His dialogue is some of the series’ best.

Coulson destroyed his body in an explosion that killed the Chronicoms. Coulson wound up a Max Headroom-type character in 1983 with Deke.

Sousa and Daisy are growing closer as Daisy was getting tortured and experimented on by Nathanial Malick, who wanted Daisy’s powers transferred to him. He was able to do it, but he could not handle the new power.

It was awesome to have General Rick Stoner, played by Patrick Warburton, in his real body in the 1970s. Warburton played Stoner as a hologram when the Lighthouse closed up a few seasons ago. That hologram was based on a past Shield executive, and now we got to meet him.

Again though, Shield and the Chronicoms were playing havoc with the Sacred Timeline and I wonder what the TVA was doing.

The Muppet Show S1 E12, E13, E14

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Guest: Peter Ustinov

Guest: Bruce Forsythe

Guest: Sandy Duncan

Three more Muppet Show episodes and three guest stars. Looking at the three guest stars, Peter Ustinov would not be a guest star that you would expect on the Muppet Show. He was a two time Academy Award winner and had that high brow feel to him. However, he seemed to be fully engaged and willing to put himself out there. He was clearly having a good time with whatever silliness he was put in. Bruce Forsythe and Sandy Duncan make a much more understandable guest for the Muppets, but Ustinov was great.

It was on the Peter Ustinov episode where Kermit sang his iconic Sesame Street song, “(It’s Not Easy) Bein’ Green.” This was the song most connected to Kermit until the Rainbow Connection came along in the Muppet Movie.

The running storyline of the Peter Ustinov episode was that Kermit was feeling jealous of Ustinov, especially how everyone was fawning over him. We come to find out at the end that Peter Ustinov was jealous of Kermit because he always wanted to be a frog. Silly, but fun.

Bruce Forsythe helped Fozzie finish off Statler and Waldorf and their heckling. Forsythe was great because he was a comedian, a singer, a dancer, piano player and he showed all of these off during the show.

The Sandy Duncan episode found Fozzie at the heart of the backstage storyline as he was telling people that his writer was the legendary Gags Beasley. Fozzie then said he was going to do the famous Banana Sketch, which EVERYONE except Kermit knew. Kermit was getting frustrated when everyone would laugh about the Banana Sketch and would look down on Kermit when they discovered that Kermit was unaware about it. Even Sandy Duncan got into the act, barely able to contain her laughter with Fozzie when thinking about the Banana Sketch. There was no real pay off to this, outside of Kermit driving himself crazy. The bouquets of bananas her had Fozzie give Sandy Duncan at the end was a nice little punctuation to the storyline.

Of the most memorable moments for me on these three episodes, (outside of Bein’ Green) I would say that it was the song “Never Smile at a Crocodile” which was a fun respite. I did not remember hearing “I’m My Own Grandpa” on the Muppet Show before, but it was there. I am most familiar with Ray Stevens’ version of the song.

Agents of Shield S7 E1, E2, E3

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“The New Deal”

“Know Your Onions”

“Alien Commies from the Future”

I kicked off season seven of Agents of Shield today with episodes 1-3. I think it might have been my favorite season of the show because of the wild time travel aspects that they have, plus the addition of Daniel Sousa, from the Agent Carter series.

The time travel of this show is different than the greater MCU, which, I choose to believe, is where the Agents of Shield show went off the wire for the MCU. Up until a certain point, it maintained continuity with the movies, but that clearly changed. It might have been when the agents came back from the future, but there is no doubt that with the whole crew back in the past, they would have been creating branch timelines all over the place.

The TVA must have been extremely busy cleaning up the sacred timeline here.

First, we landed in 1931 and we got involved in an attempted assassination of FDR… or so we thought. Instead, the Chronicons were after Freddy Malick, who we know would become the father of future Hydra leader Gideon Malick.

We also met the first of the Koenig family involved, Ernest “Hazard” Koenig. He learned a bunch about the Shield group, which probably is what started his family’s involvement down the line. Enoch got left in the past as the Zephyr time jumped on its own. I remember the first time that I saw this episode being so sad about Enoch being left behind. He had become one of my favorites, and this rewatch has only helped solidify him as a personal favorite secondary character.

In 1955, they have Simmons pretend to be Peggy Carter, which was both inspired and crazy, to infiltrate Shield base at Area 51. Coincidentally, Peggy’s old partner Daniel Sousa showed up for the testing as well. I was not a big fan of Sousa on Peggy Carter, but when he came to jo0in Agents of Shield, I found him to be an exceptional addition.

Both May and Yo Yo are having problems. May was lacking emotions, even more than before, and Yo Yo has not been able to use her Inhuman power since the alien parasite had infected her.

The show continued to have that great action mixed with laugh out loud moments and created a different brand of sci-fi genre than it had had before.

Simpsley

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Disney + has a special episode of The Simpsons drop on the streamer, and it was tremendous.

It has been a long time since I have watched anything with the Simpsons in it, so when I saw this parody of a film noir called Simpsley, I was intrigued. I am a fan of noir.

The black and white aesthetic worked well for this stand alone episode that exists outside of the Simpsons’ typical continuity. In fact, this was a total switch for the characters.

According to IMDB, “When penniless con artist Marge Bouvier is sent to Italy to convince wealthy sap Seymour Skinner to come home, she’s tempted by the trappings of his affluent lifestyle. But there’s a big fat fly in the ointment: Skinner’s clingy, dim-witted mooch of a houseguest, Homer Simpsley. Lies, lust, and Italian lira abound in this Disney+ exclusive Simpsons noir.”

I loved how these characters were put into different roles, yet showed some of their own normal traits. I also loved the way that the episode place Homer and Marge into a situation where they are clearly the bad guys, despite being the show’s protagonists.

I have to say that the cameo from Bart was shocking and brilliant.

The show had its share of shocks moving through it as it embraced the style of noir well and gave us a satisfying episode contained within.

This is a parody of The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Agents of Shield S6 E11, E12, E13

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“From the Ashes”

“The Sign”

“New Life”

The shorter season six finished off with some awesome action and a bunch of subverting of expectations.

The main expectation that is subverted is something that they teased throughout the season. The fact that Sarge was created as part of Coulson made everyone think that he would turn out to be saved by the team and we would get Coulson back yet again.

However, he turned out to be the villain after all.

I talked about Deke’s hero moment in the last block of episodes, and he has one here as well. He does disappoint his grandparents (Fitz & Simmons) with some of his motives, or at least they way the way they saw it. I loved how Mack appreciated him, he thanked Agent Shaw, for the sort of rescue. Deke is a great character with a lot of contradiction within him. He is one to show silliness on the outside, only to hide the pain inside.

The end episode sets up season 7 big time, including the time travel aspect, the Hunters chasing them, and LMD Coulson. It was an intriguing choice to do it this way and not just use Sarge, which would have been an easy choice. I like how they kept the character of Sarge in the manner in which he was.

Thinking back, whatever happened to Flint? They created him with the Monoliths and then had Piper take him to get help for his broken leg, but we never see him again and they head back into the past right away. We also never see them rescue Benson from the pod that he was dropped in. I do not recall if these are threads that are picked up again in season seven or if these are just dangling threads never to be considered again.

I do think this was a strong season, but the final few episodes felt a little messy. There were still solid results from them and I love the set up for season 7.

The Muppet Show S1 E9, E10, E11

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Guest: Charles Aznavour

Guest: Harvey Korman

Guest: Lena Horne

I knew that there would be some huge moments of nostalgia for me by doing this Muppet Show rewatch because there are some clips that have stuck with me all these years. These three episodes of season one, nine, ten and eleven, included several of these.

In episode nine, guest starring Charles Aznavour, someone who I would have never recognized, did one of the numbers with lyrics I say all the time. “Two and two are four. Four and four are eight. Eight and eight are sixteen. Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two.” This is from the song Inchworm and I remember this since my youth.

Episode ten had a couple of iconic memories for me. First was the “Funniest joke of all time” from Fozzie Bear, who grabbed Kermit to help him and wanted Kermit to come on stage after he hears the word “Hear” and deliver the line “Good grief! The comedian’s a bear!” The homophones would be the joke of course, but this is a fabulous routine with Jim Henson and Frank Oz delivering their lines perfectly. This was on a record album of hits from the first season of the Muppet Show that I had owned.

The other amazing performance on this episode was from Robin the Frog, who sang A.A. Milne’s poem, “Halfway Down the Stairs.” I loved this growing up and it just triggers every memorberry that I have.

Most celebrities look as if they are having a great time on the Muppet Show. Some have joy and fun all over their faces. Lena Horne is a perfect example. She was so happy to be here. However, in episode eleven, it sure seemed as if Harvey Korman hated being here. He did not seem to be enjoying his time on the Muppet Show at all. Of course, he did dress in a giant chicken costume for half the show, so there is that.

This show, which was children’s show, was surprisingly high brow on many occasions. When Charles Aznavour did a dance number with Mildred as he sang “Old Fashioned Way,” there would be plenty of people who were introduced to that song for the first time here. I was surprised to see Mildred as his dance partner in this act. Later in the seasons, it would have been 100% Miss Piggy doing that. I even had to look up the name for the Muppet Mildred.

Lena Horne surprised me with a cover of “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce. I looked it up and Horne did, in fact, cover the song herself as a record. She also sang “Sing (Sing a Song)” from Sesame Street which included background singers Gonzo, Miss Piggy, George the Janitor among others. Both Kermit and Fozzie got to sing with Lena.

As I mentioned, the Muppet Show may have been targeted for children, but it did not talk down to them. It provided music and allusions to some of the greatest cultural items of all time. And, they put Harvey Korman in a chicken suit.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #76

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The Boroughs

“Forbidden Fruit”

I love this show. It has everything you could want out of a show like this: humor, drama, suspense, wonderful characters and a mystery that is truly compelling.

I am sad that Netflix decided that this was the only season this show was going to get, but it makes me happy that it exists at all.

This week we get all kinds of progress, including Sam, Judy and Wally setting a trap for the monster (which actually worked!), an investigation by Renee into the background of Hank (who seems to be a man named Milton Hauser, who died in a car wreck in the 1970s), and Art’s transformation after eating a magic peach.

Not that everything went great. The trap for the monster may have worked, but it was able to get away. Judy winged it with a gun and it seemed to bleed blue blood. Sam ran into his daughter and there was a tense discussion. Then, Paz, who was curious about a meeting between Hank and Boroughs CEO Blaine Shaw, followed Hank into the basement and saw something in a room before he was shocked into unconsciousness by Hank.

Ed, who tried to help Sam, died in the episode off screen and Sam suspected that Blaine had the man killed because he tried to help him.

There is definitely something sinister going down at the Boroughs and the show has a pace that does not mess around. It provided a bunch of great scenes while furthering the mysteries. The LOST-style shot at the end of the episode with Sam, Wally and Judy peering down a shaft that had allowed the creature access to Sam’s house was a great cliffhanger.

Silo S3 E1

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“Who Are You?”

Apple TV +’s sci-fi series Silo has returned and started its third season. The show stars Rebecca Ferguson as Juliette, who has returned from her “cleaning” without her memory and, apparently, has been elected (appointed???) Mayor of Silo 18.

Juliette is being treated like a savior, a messiah, a hero by the others in the Silo.

We left season two with Juliette and Bernard trapped inside the incinerator. Juliette does not remember anything prior to the incinerator, and she was told that she was saved by the insulation in her suit. She is told Bernard was not as lucky and he died from the exposure to the flames and the poison.

However, we see a flashback of Sims actually smothering Bernard with plastic after he had survived the incinerator.

We get a bunch of things like this, certainly implying that Sims and his wife Camille are manipulating people, including Juliette.

Juliette found a capsule in her soup that contained a message. The message stated, “Want to know the truth? Leave your bowl upside down. Go to the marketplace.” 

We had learned that Juliette was being drugged by Camille and that The Algorithm is worried that Juliette’s real memories are returning.

The show had a series of flashbacks, connected to the pair of characters that we saw in Washington, D.C. at the end of season two. This was pre-collapse times and one of the characters was Congressman Daniel Keene, who is concerned about his sister Charlotte Keene, who is scheduled to fly a mission to bomb Iran in response to the “dirty bomb” mentioned last year.

Charlotte is shown in a plane that entered a cloud that was not supposed to be there which led to a bizarre crash. Charlotte is rescued but she has suffered a brain injury and she does not recognize Daniel when he comes to see her.

These flashbacks give me definitive LOST vibes, especially the vibes of season four when we saw the Oceanic Six in present day time.

Intriguing start with a whole bunch of new mysteries to sink your teeth into. This is released every Friday night on Apple TV +.

Rick and Morty S1 E6, E7, E8

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“Rick Potion #9”

“Raising Gazorpazorp”

“Rixty Minutes”

Rick & Morty are a lot of fun, but… geez are they inappropriate.

I do have to say that I loved in “Rixty Minutes” how Morty brought up stuff from other episodes that season such as the episode where Rick and Morty ruined the world and took up residence in another universe where they had died. Continuity, you know.

And my favorite new word…

“Gazorpazorp”

If ya know, you know.

We’ll have to see if Morty Jr. will ever make a return cameo in the show.

The TV shows and commercials on the infinite cable had to be a hoot for the writers of the show. Anything was available, and they came up with some of the best (and worst) things on TV.

I love how this show is so irreverent, just doing whatever it needed to do to get a laugh. Morty and his sex robot, The Cronenberg planet, etc.

There is also a serious storyline running through the series, which is the marriage of Jerry and Beth and how their marriage is on shaky ground. We discovered that Summer was not only unwanted, but Jerry had to talk Beth out of getting an abortion. We learned about their potentially successful lives had they not gotten married.

So far, Jerry and Beth have ended episodes in each others’ arms, but will that maintain?

Three more episodes of Rick & Morty before moving into season two.

Agents of Shield S6 E5, E6, E7, E8, E9, E10

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“The Other Thing”

“Inescapable”

“Toldja”

“Collision Course (Part I)”

“Collision Course (Part II)”

“Leap”

We got a chunk of the sixth season watched on this Fourth of July. The mysteries of Sarge and crew and what they were doing on the earth. We learned the truth about Sarge during these episodes.

The Agents of Shield finally all got back together on earth. It has been like a season and a half since the entire group were back together in one point. Since the diner scene before they were abducted, they finally were all together. It may not have been for long, but it was nice to see.

The tense scenes on the semi as it rolled seemingly unstoppable toward the structure with a deadly bomb aboard. It was nice to see that Deke was shown to be capable and not just a talkative jerk.

RIP Davis. We did not know you well. I had little connection to Davis when I first watched this show, but I liked him much more this time through. Watching him killed by Izel was both brutal and frightening. She is a monstrous villain and felt as if she could not be touched.

The end of Collison Course (Part II) certainly felt like the end of the season, until May walked into Sarge’s cell and shot him to death… or at least for a bit. I liked how Mack and Yo Yo finally go back together.

The battle of machismo between Sarge and Mack was also some great stuff. Who was ahead of the other one? It always seemed that both Sarge and Mack were two steps ahead of each other.

“Inescapable” highlighted some great performances from Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge. The scenes where Elizabeth is told that Fitz was killed and when Fitz learned about his own death and the marriage were bangers. I loved this episode because it was a great character study about these two complex characters.

There are three remaining episodes of season six remaining for the team to prevent Izel from her evil plan.

Agents of Shield S6 E2, E3, E4

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“Window of Opportunity”

“Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson”

“Code Yellow”

Agents of Shield went more sci-fi last season and less superhero/superspy action, and they have maintained that in season six.

The Coulson-lookalike Sarge continued to be doing something strange with his new crew. They robbed a jewelry store to get some basic piezoelectric gems. May confronted them, physically beat the crap out of some of them, but could not stop them. She was taken aback coming face to face with Sarge.

Poor Fitz and Simmons never get a break. They wind up face to face on the planet of Kitson, after a fun episode in a casino. However, Fitz is snatched by Malachi, a bounty hunter looking for Fitz.

Enoch is one of my favorite characters of this season. The whole Chronicom bit makes him feel kind of like Mr. Spock, and Enoch’s relationship with Fitz is sweet.

Deke is back in episode four, using technology he stole from SHIELD to set up a company dealing with video games and virtual reality. It was good to see him back, though the character does feel a little shady.

There are some strange alien bird creatures that fly inside people. I believe this is part of what non-Coulson is doing here. One got inside Shield’s HQ and flew inside Keller. Yo Yo had to kill him to stop him from destroying the base with crystalline structures.

Sarge captured May at the end of episode four and he is taking her somewhere.

Lots of fun and mysteries in this season so far.

X-Men ’97 S2 E1, E2, E3

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“Days of Past Future”

“A Force to Be Reckoned With”

“Rise of Apocalypse, Part 1”

X-Men ’97’s second season’s first three episodes were dropped on Disney +.

Three episodes and they are each dealing with a different timeline. Episode one was in the future with Cyclops and Jean with the Askani and young Nate Grey. Episode two was in the 1997 timeline with Jubilee and Sunspot joining X-Force and facing off with X-Factor. Episode three was in the past in Ancient Egypt where En Sabah Nur was becoming the force that he would become.

They also seemed to be setting up En Sabah Nur and Rama-Tut, who is one of the forms of Kang the Conqueror. That feels really large of a story.

My favorite of these three episodes was number two, when they even went as far as redo the intro with the X-Force team in it. That was so epic, it got me fired up.

It was a lot of fun to have seen these extra characters, such as Strong Guy, Polaris, Quentin Quire, Archangel, Psylocke, and several others. Loved it.

There was so much going down on these episodes. It was dense in story and characterization. It was amazing how much they put into episodes that were around 30 minutes each. The animation is great and there are some beautiful shots in these episodes.

It looks like we have a weekly release of episodes moving forward and I think that would be helpful considering how much there was in each episode.

The Bear S5 E6, E7, E8

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“Focaccia”

“Caramel”

“The Original Beef of Chicagoland”

I finished the Bear’s final season tonight with episodes six, seven and eight.

Episode six and seven were both about the night that has been building up all season long. All season has been the same day so far and this was the night when the customers arrived.

Six and seven created such an emotional response from me. I was stressed the entire episode, on the edge of my seat the entire time. I kept waiting for something to happen that would derail everything for them, as the past episode 1-5 of this year was loading problem upon problem.

Then, the whole staff just came together and dominated these two episodes. CHEF!

Every problem that appeared, they worked together to come up with remarkably creative solutions.

By the way, this episode was about preparing food for a restaurant full of people, and it might have been the most tense, most suspense that I have been watching any TV show this season so far.

Episode six was all falling action, as we see how people wrap their stories up. We discover that the “UNKNOWN CALLER” that had been trying to call Carmy was the man giving out stars and that the Bear was given not one, but two stars.

This season of The Bear has been my favorite one since early on, maybe even since season one. These episodes were tight and worked so well as one day (with an exception of the final episode) and was an amazing viewing experience. I found this a wonderful way to end this series.